I love my wife. We've enjoyed almost 9 years of marriage and 3 loving children.

Before we were married, my wife started with threatening to "call off the wedding" during disagreements. She "threw the ring" at me several times. After we were married, same thing, except then it started getting physical. mostly shoving and slapping, but later a coffee cup thrown at the back of my head and an elbow that resulted in a black eye. I am physically larger and stronger than she is, and sometimes would restrain her if she got out of hand, but sometimes I would choose not to.

In December 2010 she hit me for the last time. I called the police. Nothing came of it because they are useless, but at least she stopped hitting me.

Since then we've been living in relative peace. but recently, she began to verbally abuse me with filthy insults in front of my boys when she was angry.

Today, in a disagreement over housework, she threatened to divorce me, heaped more filth on me, and even accused me of infidelity (an absolutely baseless and wholly untrue accusation.) All right in front of a wide eyed 5 year old and 6 year old, and a very distressed 2 year old.

This was the last straw. I left. It's only a matter of time before the physical abuse starts again.

I've read Willard Harley's books a few years ago, and I really loved them. They improved our marriage, but unfortunately not enough it seems.

I was unable to find the books before leaving today, but I wanted to ask a few questions.

I remember a section about "What if you've withdrawn so many love units that your spouse does not want you to meet his needs?" That's exactly where I am. I have no desire for intimacy at all, and while I love her in the abstract, I can barely stand the thought of her right now and the level of regression, escalation and betrayal I've endured these years. Can you tell me more about that section?

I'm also disgusted with myself for allowing it to progress this long. She took some anger management courses but clearly they were of little use. With 2 years of peace and happiness I was prepared to declare victory and a great marriage. That has been shattered.

I've only been gone 2 hours. I miss my children. I miss my wife. But I WILL NOT BE ABUSED ANY LONGER. I earnestly welcome any advice, observations, and especially commiseration from another abused husband (or wife), and maybe some inspiring stories.

I am Lutheran and at this moment I will not even entertain the possibility of divorcing her.

I am Lutheran and...I will not even entertain the possibility of divorcing her.

Kinda like the "useless" cops you summoned:

I am a pro-feminist and will not even entertain the possibility of arresting her.

(Marital, where ARE you?)

Look, she is very happy giving vent to her abusive and sadistic tendencies toward you, irrespective of the effects on your children. Exactly WHAT sanctions (legal today) ARE you willing to entertain the possibility of employing, to have her see the rror of her ways? (Sadly, the good old days of permitting husbands to beat the crap out of misbehaving wives are passe!)

- Running away? Yeah, we got that!

- Absorbing more punishment? Check!

- Abdicating your responsibility to protect, be a model for,and raise you children? Yup!

- Delegating your own responsibilities to the (laughable) LEPs? Sure!

- How about blogging about your suffering without truly establishing the fortitude to actually fight? Well, now you've done that!

Face it dude, you are today paying for your horrendous stupidity and poor judgment in marrying a seriously flawed specimen who gave you every indication of the hell marital life with her was to be, before the ceremony.

Future actions being best defined, without intrusive stimulus, by past actions, you have nothing to look forward to beyond what has already been visited upon you.

You did the right thing by leaving. Before you will ever be able to to have a happy, healthy M she needs to get a grip on her anger issues.

She took some anger mgmt but it didn't take. She needs to find another program and or try again. This should be one of the stipulations of you and her ever getting back together.

In the meantime you should do what you can to protect yourself and your little ones. They should never be exposed to the things you've revealed to us her. I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg of the things she's done that they should be sheltered from.

I understand you've had one bad experience with the police but you need to call when she is violent. You realize that by not doing so, and then leaving your children alone with her, you are going to discredit yourself if you bring up her violence in any future custody situation. If she is violent and irrational, I would recommend carrying a voice recorder with you during interactions - it would not be unreasonable for her to accuse you of violence as well.

If the abuse is verbal you can say "I will not participate in this conversation if you are yelling at me" and walk out of the room

Not sure of what help I can be, as most of my recent experience is with being a BH...but looking back part of the faults in our marriage were my wives ability to manage her anger at times.

I agree your wives chosen behavior can only possibly do one thing and that is to withdraw love units from you...Dr. H also says often that he recommends separation when the environment becomes unsafe, which it appears it has...

I would not leave the marital residence though, I would request that she leave and seek help to manage her anger to be able to work on your marriage and at that time she is welcome back home. You are leaving your kids with an unstable person.

If she won't leave seek the help of a PFA, the police will only help those who actually wish to follow through with the tools that are available.

If and when your wife understands and gets her anger under control, you guys will need to spend adequate quality time together restoring you love.

Just my opinion. Also I can say from the limited info why or if their is some type of infidelity, but honesty now or honesty later is the only way your marriage has even a chance.

PM,

No one should ever suffer from abuse. It is particularly offensive when it comes from someone who is supposed to care and protect us. When there is physical abuse, regardless of gender, Dr. Harley recommends calling the police, as you did. When one spouse has angry outbusts, Dr.Harley recommends separation. He then recommends that the angry spouse complete anger management training before reconciliation. He further recommends communicating via email, text or telephone until the angry spouse controls him/herself for a period of time.

I am concerned for your children. Protect them from your wife's behavior. She is not fit at this time to care for them.

AM

Even though you left the books.........the concepts are all on this website if you read (in the bar on the top of this page) Basic Concepts explains the Love Bank, etc.

Why would you leave your children if she is abusive? Wouldn't you be fearful they would be her next target?

By telling her you will never divorce her, you are essentially telling her you will be there regardless of what type of abuse and neglect she heaps on you. A huge part of th problem is you, my friend. You have enabled her in every way.

She is the spoiled rotten child who pitches a fit in the grocery store. And you are the neglectful parent who stands by and goes tsk tsk, doing nothing. Sure, she is not your child, but she is your wife and while it is not your job to punish her, it sure is your job to hold her accountable. By telling her you won't divorce her and refusing to have her tossed into jail, you have created a monster. Just like Harley said "Neglect and abuse characterize many marriages based on unconditional love.." You have learned this the hard way.

I agree you should separate until she attends a SUCCESSFUL anger management program and demonstrates trustworthy behavior over a period of time. Dr Harley would also tell you to have her arrested NOW for past beatings. Being arrested and charged with domestic violence is the best thing you can do for her.


Have her go through Anger Busters. Dr Harley approves of that program.

AFTER she has gone through this program, you can discuss reconciliation. And in the meantime, you can date and work on your marriage actually USING the Marriage Builders program this time. We can help you go through the lessons.

If you want Dr Harley's view on your situation you can email him and get his advice for free on his radio show. here

Armymama gave the correct advice here. You do this for a while FIRST before you have in person contact.

Agree 100%! You should not leave them there alone with her. She is too unstable. And it will help her get better faster if she has to leave her home because of her abuse.

@Jessica Claire, I also responded with incontrovertible proof by using phone data, receipt data, and surveillance data from my retail shop. The reason I made sure it's clear to you that her accusation was baseless is because she did it to hurt me and discredit me in front of my children, not because she actually believed it.

There is a lot to think about here. Thank you everyone for your responses.

The one time the police were summoned I was almost arrested. She didn't even lie to them, or me. They just refused to understand that it was a domestic abuse call that *I* initiated. They kept asking her if I hit her and so forth, and finally bafflingly accused me of false imprisonment and threatened to take us both to jail. Not an experience I want to have again, but you're right. There just needs to be documentation. I can call and make a report, but I'm not sure what good a husband reporting verbal abuse will do.

As far as marrying her, you are giving me advice 9 years in the past. Stop it. If I were drowning would you scold me for swimming in rough water, or would you lend a hand first?

With respect to leaving her with the kids, she's still a good mom. She takes out her anger and lack of control on ME, not the boys. Unfortunately our youngest son has autism and cannot be simply dumped on a babysitter/family member until this is resolved, and I have a shop to run. I'm not uncomfortable (at this time) with leaving the children with a contrite, repentant woman who I simply don't trust not to heap more angry outbursts on me. In the words of Dr. Harley, it's temporary insanity. But I've never seen it happen with the boys.

I wish I had the luxury of "kicking her out" but as with most people, a guy has to eat and has responsibilities. I will be running my shop all day today and tomorrow while I think of something else to do.

As far as believing in marriage being lifelong, I still do. If I have to live a month, 6 months, a year or more in celebate separation while these issues are resolved, I shall. I didn't say Lutherans were pro-abuse. We are just anti-divorce without scriptural basis which most are familiar with: infidelity and abandonment. I'm not sure it's gotten that far yet. But when and if it does, well. We will see. But I still treat my vows very seriously and I want that to be clear.

I have just demanded (via text) that she leave our residence as a condition to moving toward reconciliation. I think she will do it: she seems very sorry and contrite, although I did get a bit of the typical "echoing" abusers have.

Not sure what this means.


YET. When a person has anger issues, they actually have temporary insanity. She won't be able to control her actions if she gets angry around your kids. There are no guarantees when it comes to an insane person.


WE treat vows seriously too. The wedding vows we make are to "honor, cherish and love" in "sickness and health." Your wife has broken those vows by abusing you. We don't vow to endure whatever abuse the spouse decides to heap on us.

As such, we know that unconditional love leads to marriages that are characterized with abuse and neglect. However, separation very often resolves the problem. Hopefully it will in your case.

Did you and your wife live together before you were married?

Good job!

It means "you should have thought of that 9 years ago" is of no help at all *today*. I had an unhealthy view of forgiveness, equating it with reconciliation. It was a mistake. Yes I never should have let it progress this far, especially not to the point of marrying and having children with her until it was clearly resolved. But you don't lecture a drowning child. You save him. THEN you lecture him about the deep end of the pool It's one of Aesop's Fables.


I will be taking the kids this weekend at the least, and she has contacted her anger management coach as per my demand for moving toward reconciliation.


I haven't vowed to endure any level of abuse at all--hence the separation. But also remember that in this fallen world, every single person will fail, and has broken their marriage vows to cherish and love their spouses. This alone is not grounds for divorce--Jesus made that perfectly clear. If it leads to a clear emotional abandonment, then yes I'll make it official. But at the moment I'm not sure.


No. She lived with her parents, I lived with mine or at college. We had an 18 month engagement following a 2 year courtship (she was a junior in high-school, I a freshman in college, when we first connected.) We were very seldom sexually active, celibate over a year into our courtship, then maybe once a month. We felt guilty and we confessed our sins.

An interesting note on that: statistically, we are very unlikely to divorce. The common risk factors entering marriage are: problems with in-laws, disagreement on children, finances and political/religious issues, and cohabiting before marriage. We are completely united in all these fronts--except for the "temporary insanity".

PM,


I think your wife's moving out would be a good first step. She should leave the home and your children until she can demonstrate that she can control herself for a period of time. Abusers often profess to be sorry and contrite - until it happens the next time.

You describe your wife as a good mother. Abusing the children's father in front of them is not behavior consistent with being a good mother.

BTW, I am not recommending divorce. I do suggest separation until your wife demonstrates that she has stopped her abusive behavior.

AM